Hey, you resto no-shows? Shame on you

Susan Schwartz, THE GAZETTE11.26.2013

“It’s not just the small business owner you are hurting, but all the potential diners who really want to come to your restaurant that night, who have been trying to get into your restaurant and can’t," says Nora Gray co-owner Ryan Gray of no-shows.John Kenney
/ THE GAZETTE

A table is set up at restaurant Nora Gray in Griffintown, but a growing number of people have no qualms about not honouring restaurant reservations — and about not bothering to call to inform the establishment that they won’t be there.John Kenney
/ THE GAZETTE

Tuck Shop co-owners, from the left, Theo Lerikos, who is the chef, Jon Bloom and Amelia Stines. “It’s the single thing that hurts our business most, apart from hockey playoffs,” Bloom said of no-shows at the happening 40-seat bistro-style restaurant in St-Henri.John Kenney
/ John Kenney / THE GAZETTE

Restaurant Nora Gray co-owner Lisa McConnell looks at the reservation book. Some restaurants keep lists of repeat no-shows. For those people, the restaurant is likely to be full whenever they want a table. But apart from that, restaurateurs have little recourse.John Kenney
/ THE GAZETTE

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MONTREAL — You accepted an invitation to a dinner party at the home of a friend — but it turns out that now you can’t make it. Maybe the babysitter cancelled. Or the basement flooded. Or a family member had a health emergency.

Whatever happened, chances are you wouldn’t dream of not contacting your host to say that, regretfully, you had to cancel. That would be so totally rude.

And yet a growing number of people have no qualms about not honouring restaurant reservations — and about not bothering to call to inform the establishment that they won’t be there.

They’re known in the business as no-shows. And they are an ever-deepening thorn in the side of restaurateurs in Montreal and elsewhere, particularly those who own much-buzzed-about places with only a few dozen seats.

They’re bad for the bottom line, for one. Profit margins are slim enough in the restaurant business that even a single table of no-shows can cost a restaurant its profit for the evening.

“It’s the single thing that hurts our business most, apart from hockey playoffs,” said Jon Bloom, one of three partners in Tuck Shop, a happening 40-seat bistro-style restaurant in St-Henri.

“When it really hurts is when it’s a four- or six-top early in the night,” said Ryan Gray, one of three partners in Nora Gray, a 40-seat southern Italian restaurant, using industry parlance for a table of four or six diners.

“We could have sold that table a few times over. Seven o’clock; out of 40 seats, six people: Do the math.”

Because the Griffintown restaurant, like other popular — and small — establishments, is booked a week or so in advance for the early seating on Fridays and Saturdays, Gray has been turning people away for a few days now. “Today, I have already said ‘no’ to I don’t know how many people,” he said on a recent Friday afternoon.

“It’s not just the small business owner you are hurting, but all the potential diners who really want to come to your restaurant that night, who have been trying to get into your restaurant and can’t. It’s just the worst feeling. And it’s impossible not to take it personally.

“And maybe they don’t try again next time,” said Gray, 31. “So we are all getting screwed because this jerk didn’t have the common courtesy to pick up the phone. And it sucks when the place is full and there is this big, gaping hole where a table is empty.”

An empty table in place of the six jovial diners you’d hoped would be seated around it can interfere seriously with the vibe a place is trying to create: Think of the searchlight that shone down on Steve Martin in The Lonely Guy when he was seated at a table for one. It’s glaring.

As people who dine out have no doubt observed, it has grown increasingly common for restaurants to phone the day of a reservation to confirm it — in much the same way as someone from your dentist’s office calls to remind you that you have an appointment.

“We find some people genuinely forget,” said Amelia Stines, one of the partners in Tuck Shop.

Occasionally, when she calls to confirm a reservation, she is told, “I was just about to call to cancel.”

“I’m a mind reader,” she usually replies.

What is particularly galling, though, is when diners confirm that very day that they’ll be there — and then don’t show.

“I have spoken to someone at 5 p.m. to confirm a table of 10 for 7:30,” said Stephen Leslie, chef and partner at Tavern on the Square in Westmount Square. “Then you call back when they don’t show up — and they don’t pick up. A table of 10 represents 10 per cent of my night’s sales.”

“Some people don’t have the guts to say ‘I changed my mind at the last minute,’ ” said Tuck Shop’s Bloom, “or they don’t have the courage to say that there was a last-minute change of plans. It’s easier to just not turn up.”

For restaurant owners and staff, who go out of their way to create a dining experience that will please their customers, one in which the food and ambience mesh and make for something memorable, it’s personal.

“We’re prepping all day,” said Stines of Tuck Shop. “It really does hurt us when people don’t turn up: It adds a lot of stress to service.”

When a party has not yet arrived and it’s 15 minutes after they were expected, they try to call. They could be running late, “and we are all waiting on them,” she said.

That can be stressful — for several reasons. If they’re late for a reservation early in the evening, then there’s a good chance the diners who are set to occupy the table after them will be kept waiting. And because the Tuck Shop people won’t give a table away until a party is 30 minutes late, sometimes Stines has to tell walk-ins that she has no space for them — despite the fact that they’re all staring at the same empty table.

Recently at Tuck Shop, a table of six didn’t show or call to cancel. And the following week, the person who had reserved the table called to make another reservation. Stines recognized the name — and didn’t want to give him a table.

“Last week, I gave you a reservation for six and you didn’t show up,” she told him. “At first, he was mad,” she recalled. He asked to speak to the owner; she replied that she was the owner and explained, “I run a very small business, and I have to have a way to protect myself.”

Ultimately, she accepted his reservation — and he didn’t turn up for that one, either. But he did call to cancel.

One reason for no-shows is that there are diners who like to book tables at multiple restaurants “and hedge their bets,” said Brandon Bidlack, head of restaurant marketing for OpenTable, the largest online reservations service in the industry.

“They want to have a place, so they reserve a few weeks in advance, and then decide at the last minute where to go,” said François Meunier, vice-president of public and governmental affairs for the Association des Restaurateurs du Québec.

“The effects are extremely negative,” he said. Restaurateurs take into account the number of reservations in ordering food and in staffing — “and then you can have 10 per cent no-shows. And you can’t always fill the places at the last minute.”

Because they tend to be busiest on Fridays and Saturdays, restaurants usually have extra staff those nights. With no-shows, there is less work for the staff — and less in the way of tips.

Increasingly, people reserve tables online, through websites and services like OpenTable and Bookenda; perhaps because these reservations are made without contact with an actual person, it’s simpler for people just to blow them off. But “in not bothering to cancel, they are showing a lack of respect for the restaurant owners, a kind of nonchalance,” Meunier said.

Restaurateurs grumble to one another about no-shows, and occasionally take to the Twittersphere to grumble to their followers. “It’s 7:30 and I’m at 25 no-shows and last-minute cancellations. #bullshit.” Leslie of Tavern on the Square tweeted a couple of Saturdays back. His establishment has 88 seats, plus seats at the bar.

After a table of 10 failed to show earlier this year, Antonio Park, chef and co-owner of Park, a high-end 48-seat Asian restaurant in Westmount, tweeted: “Hate Hate Hate no shows!!!! WTF!!! Can’t you just call and cancel?!?! I had 30 pple on the waiting list! Absolutely no love nor respect!!”

His hope for the tweet, he explained, was “that somehow people would see it and understand, ‘Next time, call.’ I wanted to educate people, to let them know I come here six days a week, every lunch and dinner. If someone works 100 to 120 hours a week and puts all his love on a plate, have a little respect.”

Stines, 33, divides no-shows into three categories: There are those who had a genuine emergency; those who make multiple reservations and think nothing of not honouring or cancelling them; and those who call at the last minute, during service, and book a table for two, say, in half an hour — and then don’t show. “Meanwhile, I have to turn people away at the door,” she said.

And that’s deeply frustrating.

Occasionally Bloom will text no-shows or email them the following day to say how much he would have appreciated hearing from them that they wouldn’t be there. His intent is to show people that their actions have repercussions — and to get them to think twice before not calling to cancel the next time.

Some people are receptive — and apologetic. Others let him know there was an emergency. Still others say, “Who do you think you are?”

Bloom, 37, believes that, among no-shows, many are people who were unable to secure a reservation for the time they wanted. Say they want a table for four at 7 — Montrealers tend to eat earlier than diners in New York or many European capitals, he said — but no table is available at 7. So he offers a table for 8:30. They book it, but half-heartedly; really, they don’t want to wait until 8:30. And perhaps because they didn’t get their first choice to begin with, they might not feel that they owe the restaurateur the courtesy of a phone call to cancel.

“If people sound a bit flaky, we will warn them that we have to hear back from them the day of their reservation,” he said.

Another situation that plagues restaurateurs is partial no-shows — the party that reserves for 10, say, and shows up with four. “I understand,” Bloom said. “It happens. All we are asking is for people to call.”

Some restaurateurs have suggested taking deposits from large groups. At the Restaurant de l’Institut at the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec, for instance, a policy was introduced three years ago whereby a contract is signed with groups of more than 10 and a credit card taken as a guarantee. Cancellations can be made as late as 48 hours before the day of the reservation.

“We would be taken by people who had reserved for 20 and then only some members of the party would turn up,” explained director Marie-Claude Simard. That meant losses in terms of food, and it also meant having too much staff on hand.

“We want to protect ourselves, optimize our space and seating and be best able to plan our lunch or supper service to meet the needs of the client,” she said. “The more precautions we take, the better.”

The reservation is confirmed the day before and an email is sent the day of the reservation. “We are in touch with them a minimum of twice,” Simard said. A charge of $10 per person is levied for no-shows, but in all the time the policy has been in place, fewer than five people have been charged, she said.

Some restaurants keep lists of repeat no-shows. For those people, the restaurant is likely to be full whenever they want a table. But apart from that, restaurateurs have little recourse.

Leslie of Tavern on the Square said he’d love to see a reservation system in place in which all Montreal restaurateurs participate. That way, there would be a record of chronic no-shows, and restaurateurs would be able to say, “You can’t keep doing that to us.”

Some restaurateurs have been flirting with the idea of asking for credit-card numbers to guarantee reservations — and informing people that if they cancel with less than 24 or 48 hours notice or don’t show, there will be a charge. Some high-end restaurants in cities like New York and Chicago do this.

Meunier said his association is waiting for an opinion from the Office de la protection du consommateur about whether restaurants have the right to do this. But even if the OPC were to give them the go-ahead, the downside is that such a practice would no doubt annoy some diners.

There is also the concern that customers, particularly the regulars on whom many of these places rely for a good portion of their business, would be offended. “They feel their word should be enough,” Leslie said.

That’s not to say there aren’t regulars among the no-shows. “It’s a little surprising, I know,” he said.

But he said he would be prepared to have a conversation with those customers about how hard it is on the restaurant when one makes reservations and doesn’t turn up.

As Meunier observed: “The idea is to make them understand the serious nature of what they are doing, to understand that there are consequences to their simply not showing up without calling.”

During lunch service one day last month at Tavern on the Square, a table of 15 was being held for a 1 p.m. reservation — regulars, it happened. Partner Don Lovell had confirmed the reservation that morning with the fellow who had made it. It was a busy day, and during the early part of the service they turned away 20 people. Then at 12:50 p.m., the man’s secretary called to say they weren’t coming, that they’d been held up in a meeting.

Annoyed, Lovell wanted to speak to the man, to say that to cancel like that at the 11th hour “is not cool” and that he had turned away a lot of diners because he was holding a table for them — but he was unavailable.

Because it was so busy, they were able to break the large table up into a few smaller ones and fill them. Lovell calmed down. “Unfortunately, the secretary got the brunt of my anger,” he said. “But in the end, they’re customers. We can’t get too mad at them.”

Some Montreal restaurants obviate the problem of no-shows by not taking reservations. The Monkland Tavern in Monkland Village, with 38 seats and more at the bar, is one.

“You get more people in and out the door without reservations — and it is full almost all the time,” said Leslie, who is chef and partner there as well as at Tavern on the Square. “If a six-top doesn’t show, that’s nearly a quarter of your dining room.”

A no-reservations policy, mind you, is not feasible for restaurants without walk-in traffic.

Some high-end restaurants in the United States accept reservations from regulars only, Meunier said; others overbook, in much the same way airlines do, to protect themselves against no-shows.

Overbooking is an option in a place with enough seats, but potentially troublesome in a small restaurant. To Park, 38, the practice is discourteous to diners. What if everyone who has reserved turns up? “You can’t promise something you can’t deliver,” he said.

Many popular places have waiting lists — but if anyone on them is to score a table, someone who already has a reservation that can’t be honoured has to call to cancel.

“I tell people to call at 4 or 5 p.m. on Saturday,” said Gray of Nora Gray. “That’s usually when people are getting around to checking messages. And maybe they learn that a friend’s babysitter cancelled.

“All I need to hear is, ‘I have to cancel.’ People come up with these crazy stories; I am sure half of them are true, but I don’t care. I tell them, ‘Thank you so much for calling. It is very much appreciated. You are about to make someone else really happy.’ That’s the beauty of calling. I am happy and someone else is really happy. It’s a best-case scenario. It is just the simplest thing.”

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